1. Ask the job candidate to state his or her maternal grandmother’s maiden name. If the candidate knows it, that candidate is a female.
2. Put a round rubber object on the table. If the candidate picks it up and simply looks at it, the candidate is female. If the person starts throwing the object into the air as high as possible or at the wall as hard as possible within 10 seconds, the person is male.
3. Make available several small “free” items — such as packets of sugar, Band-Aids, Post-It notes, miniature Sharpies, and/or multi-colored paperclips. If the person fills up pockets, handbags, and cheeks with as many of these items as possible in order to take them home, that person is female. And she probably got her Ph.D. at a state university.
4. Place a fish tank in the room. If the candidate attempts to get the fishes’ attention at any cost — including the making of noise, disturbing the serenity of the fish, depriving the fish of small plastic castles, losing all human dignity, etc. — that person is male. Women simply don’t need that kind of attention.
5. Ask if candidate is willing to place an entire full-sized Tootsie Roll within the mouth for a minute without biting down. A man will say “Yes” just to see if he can do it. No woman would admit that she could.
6. Ask the candidate to change an appointment by leaving a message on someone’s voice-mail. If the call is successfully completed within two minutes and/or within one phone call, the candidate is male.
7. Ask the candidate to recite a poem. If it includes the word “Nantucket,” or continues for more than 19 stanzas, the candidate is male.
8. Bring an attractive piece of furniture into the room. If the person admires it, asks about its composition, and/or touches it with fingertips, the person is female. If the person sits on it, places a glass on it, and/or asks how much it costs, the person is male.
9. Place a catcher’s mitt on the table. If the candidate puts it on and starts punching it, the candidate is male — or a real Daddy’s girl.
10. Put one hundred pennies on the table. If the candidate smiles slightly and takes only 78 of them, saying “This is all I deserve because, after all, it wasn’t important for the Equal Rights Amendment to pass since if I did I might lose my feminine advantages, whatever those are, and be considered less girlishly attractive” then that candidate is female. Not that I’m bitter.
11. Give the candidate four heavy bags to carry. If the person picks up two bags in each hand, it’s a man. One bag over each shoulder, one in each hand, it’s a woman.
12. Turn the room temperature up to 102 degrees. If the person turns the temperature down, it’s a man. If the person looks around and asks “Is it hot in here, or is it me?” that person is a woman.
13. Offer the candidate one hundred decorative rubber-stamps for various occasions. If the candidate doesn’t spit in your eye, the candidate is female.
14. If, while interviewing the candidate, you end up discussing where you grew up, went to school, your favorite foods, and whether or not you are taking estrogen orally or through a patch, the candidate is female.
15. Show videos of overweight people happily dancing. If the candidate laughs, just guess what sex that person is….
16. Place an awning three feet above the head of the candidate. If the person repeatedly jumps up in an attempt to smack the edge of the awning, the person is male.
17. Put a pile of crumpled small shopping bags from elegant stores on a table. If the candidate automatically starts smoothing them out and folding them correctly, the person is female.
18. Seat the candidate in front of a table where there is a small spill. On the other end of the table, place a toll of paper towels. If the person rises, gets the paper towels, wipes up the spill, looks for a trash can, and puts the paper towels back where they were, and then sits back down, the person is female.
19. Print out Mapquest and Google directions. If the person glances down and announces “These are no good,” that person is male.
20. Offer the candidate a choice between a nail file and toothpick. Nail file: female; toothpick: male.
13 Responses to Surefire Ways to Suss Out Whether a Job Candidate Is Male or Female
dajones - March 10, 2010 at 7:21 pm
This is funny and I enjoyed reading it. Why is it that we can all agree and laugh about the fact that women really are so very different from men in so many ways, but when it comes to science and math, we then have to pretend that we are exactly alike. That we approach problems differently, process information differently, and are motivated by different challenges seems obvious, but when we try to talk about how this might manifest in lower participation rates for women in some areas of math and science (such as physics and engineering, but not biology and medicine), some people get really upset. I say we should celebrate our differences since too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing. I wonder, though, what would have happened if Larry Summers had posted this blog…Anyway, I really enjoyed it and my husband enjoyed watching me giggle like a school girl while I read it!
suomynona - March 10, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I failed the first one (as a male). It could be my outstanding masculinity, or it could be my good memory. Maybe even my uncharacteristic male sensativity. Not sure.This kind of commentary I don’t find very humorous. Perhaps it sets all of us back a few years because of its reification of gender stereotypes. Or maybe not. Once you’re tenured and female and on talk shows, you have every right to be flippant.I don’t actually care that much because, as a male, I don’t have much to worry about re. gender discrimination in the workplace. Also I’ve been through enough interview situations where I’ve learned when people are putting me on. But the idea that tenured professors are making light of the shit employment circumstances of all the rest of us is a real winner. I say keep going with that humor. Empower all the snarkiest people who currently have good academic positions that provide benefits. It’s all in the name of humor, after all. And in that prior sentence: “Empower all the snarkiest people who currently have good academic positions that provide benefits,” I meant, specifically, women. Preferably women who are on the verge of menopause, because they’ve totally made it. All the rest of the women who are trying desperately to get an academic job can afford to put off the concerns of childbearing and childcare for a few more years in hopes that they’ll make it through their interviews and someone will guess their gender accurately. Then they won’t have to worry about things.
deanette - March 10, 2010 at 10:54 pm
GB, keep them coming–the only way to tell when you’re making trouble is when you push some readers past their comfort zone. This one made me LOL and I hate the phrase.
goxewu - March 11, 2010 at 8:40 am
This is funny and I enjoyed reading it. Why is it that we can all agree and laugh about the fact that women really are so very different from me in so many ways, but have to pretend that we are exactly alike? That we approach problems differently, process information differenty, and are motivated by different challenges seems obvious, but when we try to talk about how this might manifest itself in lower representation of women than men in politics, business, science and, well, almost everything except homemaking, some people–mostly women, who process this information differently–get really upset.I wonder what would have happened, though, if Dr. James Dobson had posted this blog.Anyway, I really enjoyed it and my wife–barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen where she should be instead of outside the house trying futilely to process information like a physicist or engineer–enjoyed watching me laugh heartily like a lumberjack while I read it!
literarytype - March 11, 2010 at 11:22 am
Guess if you’re not letting readers talk about grammar you cannot make them smile. Do your Chronicle readers disappoint make you wish youdidn’t have a sense of humor so that you would fit in better, or should I say better fit in?
ex_ag - March 11, 2010 at 9:20 pm
It’s no secret that hiring committees attempt to make such guesses about candidates’ genders and ethnicity. But it is unethical. The intent of the hiring process is to hire the best person, and it’s a rather backward attitude to worry over the genders and ethnicity of the candidates…and even more so to joke about such efforts with silly stereotypes.But I suppose some people might consider this list funny–in the same way that Archie Bunker’s ignorance, racism, and sexism were funny.
jffoster - March 12, 2010 at 8:49 am
Well, I a male actually passed Item 1. My Mo was a Lloyd, her Mo was Alice Lee Kincade, and her mother was Charlotte Lee Trusty. But I probably passed 1 because I a Southerner am — “Here a Lee, there a Lee….” Folks, or rather some folks, it might be well to lighten up a little. One of the things that gave some feminists and their male obsequious syncophants a bad name was tha apparent total absence of any sense of humor. Some of these differences are sex based; others are gender, i.e. learned cultural behavior, and it’s not always clear which are which. But the failure to recognize or accept that men and women are different (in every society ever known) made it seem as though the more intransigent feminists were not rational people.
slowlearner - March 13, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Most of these tests require you to be in the same room with the candidate and to talk to him or her. I would think that direct observation of physical characteristics would probably yield more accurate results than any of these tests.
suomynona - March 13, 2010 at 7:48 pm
jffoster,I don’t disagree that having a sense of humor about these things is a good thing. In fact (and this is a completely meaningless statement in context), I think I have a pretty good sense of humor about lots of things, gender difference included. I just really, literally, don’t find this kind of gender humor funny (as I wrote above). It’s a bit played out, isn’t it? I’ll admit to being slightly offended by the image of man as a bumbling, dog-like creature and woman as helplessly neurotic, though I can happily put these things aside were these jokes actually funny. But yes, for someone in my position, there’s no such thing as a funny joke or a sense of humor about the academic job market. That I’ll give you, regardless of what gender assumptions are on the table.
suomynona - March 13, 2010 at 8:00 pm
And also, jffoster, at the risk of seeming over-feminine (neurotic):If your syntax in the first paragraph of comment #7 is meant as a dig at my syntax above (“This kind of commentary I don’t find very humorous.”), I’m sure you could agree as a linguist that my sentence is not ungrammatical, and its syntax is every bit as purposive as the double negative I’ve just employed. One of the things I really admire from German sentence structures is the flexibility of emphasizing clauses by putting them at the beginning of a sentence. I like to do this with English sometimes. My emphasis is not that I, personally, don’t find Prof. B’s commentary above funny; my emphasis is that Prof. B’s commentary above, in particular, I don’t find very funny. Right?
jffoster - March 14, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Suomynona 11, It wasn’t.
corelliansmuggler - March 16, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Wow.First, as a female PhD without a job who has FOR YEARS been putting off the concerns of childbearing–hell, putting off the concerns of socializing in general–I still think this is funny. For someone in my position, I’m in absolute need of a funny joke AND a sense of humor about all things, especially the terrible academic job market. Sometimes the comments on these things make me very sad. And a little frightened.
jmg06005 - March 16, 2010 at 12:32 pm
I have one point of contention about this column (albeit a minor one):I am female and HATE Tootsie Rolls. Give me a Snickers, however, and it’s a different story.